


the reflection that turns my images

by orphan_account



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Bullying, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-16
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a prompt on the kink meme. Every time Louis sees Harry around campus (which is increasingly often) he is always chatting up a different girl, even though he’s supposedly dating Perrie. Louis, Zayn, Niall, and Liam decide Perrie deserves better. Misunderstandings abound. Uni!AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	the reflection that turns my images

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. This is a fictional story based on the public images of these people. I do not intend to make any aspersions that their real-life counterparts behave or think like this. Title taken from Kate Nash’s ‘Dickhead’. 
> 
> I originally posted this anonymously to the kinkmeme a few weeks ago. I have since made some minor revisions and edits, and decided to post it to Ao3. Please do not send this to anyone involved in this fanwork or anyone that he or she may know. Also, if you know me in real life... let’s not speak of this.

Louis traced the beginning of the Harry saga back to September at the Northern. To be fair, Zayn’s disdain of Harry could have started earlier, but Louis tended to not notice drama that didn’t directly involve him in any way, so. September.

Zayn had been not-so-subtly staring as Perrie had leaned across the bar to point to the specific brand of rum she wanted. 

“I’m going to go pull her,” Zayn said, though he made no move to actually stand up and carry through on his claim.

Niall and Louis let out a synchronized sound of disbelief, while Liam just ignored them in favor of his phone.

Louis looked back over to where Perrie was still leaning, the bottom of her crop top riding a bit further up. She smiled at the bartender. Louis could see Zayn’s eyes zero in on each new bit of skin that was revealed. Louis was about to toss some water on him. 

“You should probably make a move soon, mate,” Niall said. “Looks like her friend’s right bored.” He gestured over to where Perrie’s friend sat, scrolling through her phone. Louis didn’t know her name, but had seen her around, mostly with Perrie. He had thought that between her blue hair and Perrie’s purple hair, that they looked like a bag of candy when he saw them around campus. Apparently Zayn found that charming, but Zayn also had hair that looked like an ice cream cone. 

“So come with, and we’ll double barrel ‘em,” Zayn said.

Niall nodded, but it was pretty clear that he wasn’t fully invested in pulling. He was mostly invested in getting Zayn laid. He took a long drag from the bottom of his pint glass, refusing to waste even the foam.

“A’right. Buy me another and I’ll make you look like David Beckham or something.”

“God speed, gentlemen. I hope for your sake, Zayn, I won’t see you back at the flat later,” Louis saluted as he shifted out of the booth to let Niall out.

Louis watched as Zayn and Niall made their way to the bar. Almost as if the gods who knew Louis loved nothing more than taking the piss out of Zayn were looking down at that pub, Perrie took that opportunity to quickly turn and gallop back to her friends. Louis secretly thought it was too perfect. Not only was Zayn hung up on a girl who didn’t know of his existence, but she was a girl who actually galloped. Literally, not figuratively, galloped. The gods loved Louis.

Next to him, Liam texted away, but Louis couldn’t help but watch the pep talk that Niall was giving Zayn. Louis had been out enough times with Zayn to know he didn’t need pep talks. He was naturally good at charming women, and he was in possession of those cheekbones. What kind of magic could the girl who imitates a horse and dyes her hair purple possess?

Louis watched from afar as Zayn steeled himself to go chat up Perrie. Of course, once Zayn was steps away from Perrie, her eyes shot up and looked just past Zayn. 

“Harry!” she shouted, her voice booming and arms thrown wide.

Louis watched as Harry Styles, a guy who he had previously only seen in one of his sociology lectures, brushed right past Zayn into Perrie’s arms.

Louis, Zayn, Niall, and even Liam all looked on as Harry cleared Perrie off the ground and swung her around a bit, her arms tightening around his neck.

As Harry put her back on the ground, he gave her a quick peck on the forehead. Louis wasn’t a master lip reader, but he definitely saw the word ‘babe’ in there. Definitely. Maybe.

Louis chanced a glance at Zayn, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to see the damage. Sure enough, Zayn’s eyebrows had narrowed and the drink in his hand was fascinating him.

“Did you know those two were dating?” Louis turned to Liam.

Liam just shrugged.

“Don’t know who that guy is, mate. Sucks for Zayn, though.”

***

Of course, once Harry Styles was on his radar as more than just ‘the bloke who sits a few rows behind me in lecture’, Louis saw him everywhere.

A couple weeks after the ‘Perrie incident’, as Niall had taken to calling it, Louis was standing outside the doorway waiting to get into the lecture hall for his sociology class. The professor that had the room before never finished on time, and so there was often a small crowd just waiting to rush the room to get to their seats.

On this day, though, Harry was standing just a few feet away from Louis, slowly rambling away on the phone. Only when Louis heard Perrie mentioned did he think it might be smart subterfuge to report this conversation to Zayn later.

“Yeah, babe. Yeah. A’right. No. No, Perrie won’t be around. Just you and me. I’ll do whatever you want to do. Total Harry and Jade date night, yeah? Alright babe, see you tonight.”

Harry hung his phone up and Louis tried to make it look as inconspicuous as possible. He hadn’t ever spoken to Harry, so really, he didn’t want Harry to think he was stalking him or something.

Louis quickly realized that reporting the phone conversation to Zayn was both critical and going to get him into a lot of shit. 

***

When Louis told the others about Harry’s phone conversation later that night, they were sitting around a pizza box, and Niall almost choked on grease and cheese.

“He’s cheating on her?” Liam asked incredulously.

“He’s a fuckin’ tit,” Zayn said. “She’s so fit, how could you look at anyone else?”

“I don’t know,” Louis said. “I’m just telling you what I heard.” He took another bite-- a large one-- as to avoid any further questions.

“Well!” Liam chirped, “At least we’ve got a plan to help Zayn woo Perrie! He’s just got to show her how badly Harry’s treating her, and how good she could have it with him!”

“There we go,” Niall agreed, waving his pizza carelessly. Louis hoped he wouldn’t have to wash the grease stains out of the sofa tomorrow. He knew he would have to.

Louis nodded, but didn’t say anything about the plan. He loved trouble as much as the next bloke, but he knew he got himself into a lot of shit. 

***

Whatever Louis said about the gods loving him was clearly a joke. It had to be, what with the turn of events that occurred a week and a half later in his sociology lecture. He had been dodging Zayn’s request to spy on Harry because he didn’t want to get involved with Zayn’s grandiose ideas of wooing. But Zayn wanted to go to the Northern again to see if Perrie’d be there, and Louis suspected he’d be witnessing another trainwreck. Also, if Perrie were there, and she were with Harry, Louis didn’t want to get into a bar fight. He’d seen Harry hang with some pretty tall people around campus.

“If you’ve been following along with your syllabus this semester,” his professor started, “you’ll notice that today I will be assigning your partners for the cumulative project. I’m doing it in class, and if I do say so myself, I’m being generous by giving you time to get acquainted and start planning.” 

Louis groaned internally. He hadn’t been following his syllabus, as a matter of fact. He had a pile of books and articles next to his bed with post-it notes telling him when to read them by. It was a system. It worked for him.

When Louis said the gods loved him, what he probably should have said was that the gods loved chaos. And making fun of people. Both things that Louis typically treasured. This time, however, the joke was clearly on him. 

“Louis Tomlinson,” the professor said, and Louis dutifully rose his hand to demonstrate who he was. The professor’s finger slid across his clipboard until it reached his partner’s name. “Harry Styles.”

It took almost all of his energy to not throw his hands up in despair. The last thing he wanted was to be dragged further into Zayn’s plan to woo Perrie, and the second Zayn caught wind about this, he’d make Louis ask Harry a million and a half about Perrie’s favorite flavor lip gloss, or something.

Also, partnered projects sucked, and Louis would probably end up doing it all himself while Harry went out and cheated on his girlfriend. Louis decided that the guy couldn’t have enough time for the birds and the books, and it was obvious what his priority was. Louis wondered if it was too late to withdraw from the class, or move to a new country. 

After the professor finished calling out names, Louis dragged himself out of his seat and turned to where he knew Harry sat. Pulling his bag along with him, he plopped himself next to Harry, who sat there texting on his phone as if Louis hadn’t arrived. Louis naturally felt like his presence deserved recognition, but Harry’s lack of acknowledgment in particular irritated him.

“Alright?”

“Alright,” Harry responded, still not looking away from his phone.

“You texting Perrie, then?” 

Apparently those were the golden words. Harry’s eyes snapped up and a big, stupid grin spanned across his big, stupid face.

“You know Perrie, then?”

Shit. Louis didn’t, that’s the thing. He didn’t know much about her beyond her penchant for hair dye, Doc Marten’s, and her ability to turn Zayn into a fool. 

“A little bit,” he responded, trying to be vague. Hopefully Harry didn’t talk too much with her about life things like school work and projects. 

To be honest, Louis couldn’t think of what Harry and Perrie would talk about; they just seemed too different. 

It was the right thing to say, Louis guessed, because Harry snapped his phone shut and flipped a few pages back on his notebook. 

“Any ideas then?” 

***

Louis didn’t want to tell the lads that he had Harry’s number in his phone. He worried that would result in prank phone calls when they were high or something. But he knew that if Zayn found out by any other way, he’d be pissed. Probably properly so, since everyone knew about Zayn’s new plan to steal Perrie away from Harry. 

He’d just have to ham it up then.

“Lads, you’ll never believe what happened to me today,” he announced as he threw himself into his favorite armchair. Ever since the day he had lugged it down the street and up the stairs to their flat on his own, he’d developed a fondness. They had a bond, he and the chair. 

Without waiting for any of their guesses, Louis broke the news about the partnered project to them.

“Bingo, mate,” Liam said simply.

“This is definitely a sign,” Zayn said, before taking a sip from his beer bottle. “This is a sign I’m meant to woo Perrie.”

“Normally I’d make fun of you for being sad and pathetic,” Louis said, “but it does seem like the cards are in your favor.”

“So, I’m going to go assume that ‘Project Pursue Perrie’ is a go then?” Niall asked.

Louis snorted and the immediately regretted it. “Yeah, that Project started weeks ago. I think it’s now morphed into ‘Operation Ruin-Harry-and-Get-Perrie-to-See-the-Light.’”

Liam looked thoughtful. 

“You’ve got to admit that’s not as catchy, though.”

***

The next night found the lads at the Northern again, with Zayn hoping to see Perrie, and Louis secretly hoping to not see Perrie. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to be a good friend and help Zayn pull, he did, it’s just that if he saw Perrie, he’d also most likely see Harry. He wasn’t really sure what to say to Harry yet outside of talking about their project, which was the last thing that he wanted to talk about at a pub. He normally tried to uphold a ‘no school work’ policy on pub nights. There were varying degrees of success. 

“Even if we don’t see Perrie and Harry tonight, I think we should put ‘Project Whatever-We’re-Calling-It’ into motion,” Zayn suggested.

Louis was bored. Sounded like a plan.

“Any ideas, captain?” Louis rebutted, batting his eyelashes at Zayn.

“None,” he responded. After a minute, he dropped his head dramatically onto the table they sat around. “I’m a sham.”

“Not true in the slightest, mate,” Liam said, patting Zayn lightly on the shoulder. Over the table, Liam gave Louis a significant look.

“I guess troublemaking is sort of my area of expertise, innit?” No verbal response, but Louis thought he heard Zayn grunt a little. “Let’s start small, then. No reason to pull out the big guns quite yet. Let’s just question his manhood a bit.”

Niall raised his eyebrows, but no one asked and no one followed as Louis slinked off to the pub’s loo, grabbing a Sharpie marker next to the cash register when the bartender wasn’t looking. He always suspected that he did not receive nearly enough credit for his sneaky talents. 

There were two unisex bathrooms in the back, one with a picture of a unicorn on the front and the other with a picture of a platypus. Louis tended to choose the one with the platypus. Actually, it was entirely possible that they were gendered, but in a hipster ironic way, and he had been using the girl’s loo all along.

When he returned back to the table, he silently began to pick up his pint glass and ignored the questioning looks.

“Well...?” Liam started.

Louis shrugged. “Like I said, start small. Anyone who uses the loos at the Northern will now be informed of Harry Styles’ abnormally small dick. I mean, it’s practically miniscule,” he added with fake concern. 

“Yeah, but what are you going to do next, then?” Niall asked. “Write a caption, ‘Oh and I heard Zayn Malik’s dick is a perfect size and girth while also being perfectly serviceable’?” 

Louis hummed in agreement. 

“S’Practically a greeting card.”

*** 

“So I was thinking about our sample with this group. I’m wondering if we’re being inclusive enough?” Harry starts, his words dripping out of his mouth, almost as if he were just waking up.

“...Like, how?” Louis challenged. He may have felt a little defensive over the sample. He was the one who suggested narrowing the study in on pre-teens. 

“I just mean, like, all the surveys we’ve collected are, basically like, 13 year old white girls from Manchester? And they all like Uggs and have sparkly iPhone cases?” Harry sounded unsure, but Louis guessed if they looked again at the surveys, he’d be right. 

Louis didn’t like when people pointed out his mistakes.

“Alright, are you saying you _don’t_ enjoy comfortable footwear and will be judging me when you see me pull out my bedazzled phone?”

Harry laughed. Deflection a success.

“Maybe I’ll email those teachers again? To see if they’ve got, like, some more diverse kids to talk to us?” Louis wondered if Harry was going to stop phrasing everything like a question. Honestly, it was like Louis had to guide Harry through everything. Harry didn’t need his permission if he wanted to get more samples. It was just causing more work for them. 

Realizing his joke hadn’t been as successful a deflection as he originally thought, and he was feeling insecure about his work, he knew he had to call in something bigger to distract Harry. 

“I heard you have a small dick,” is what came out of Louis’ mouth. Shit.

Even with as slow as Harry talked, nothing compared with how slow Harry’s eyebrows raised in disbelief.

“Where’d you hear that, then?”

Louis looked at his palm as if he wanted to crawl into it. He got himself into this mess, in every way. 

“At the Northern.” Shit. He mentally willed himself to stop speaking. “In the bathroom of the Northern.” Goddammit.

Harry’s face was caught somewhere between disbelief and mirth. Louis wondered vaguely if his goal to ruin Harry’s manhood was misguided. Or if Harry was just that confident that some secondary school level gossip wouldn’t bother him. 

“Unicorn or platypus?”

Louis scratched his head, pretending not to know the answer. “Uh, platypus.”

Harry nodded silently, possibly mentally making a note to attack the bathroom stall with cleaner later. “So you’re a platypus, then?”

In that moment, Louis understood why Harry was so good at getting all those girls. The dimple appeared, and it was all Louis could do not to try and take a sneaky instagram shot of it. He’d probably spend too long trying to decide between ‘Nashville’ and ‘Walden’. He had always been a sucker for a grin and a dirty sense of humor. Alas, Harry was not only straight, but a lothario to the core, and currently dating his best friend’s object of affection. Not exactly a winning formula.

Mustering the best dirty look he could come up with, he closed his book with finality. “Yes, well, I bet my tail is still bigger than your tiny dick.”

Harry laughed, tossed his head back, and let out a noise that Louis had previously been unaware humans regularly made. Well. 

That had not been the desired effect of Louis’ withering glance. 

***

There were approximately three Starbucks within the walk from Louis’ flat to the section of campus where most of his classes were. Of course, he had a favorite location, but it tended to be the most popular one, and as a result, he’d often end up standing in a small queue waiting for his drink. 

Louis felt in a good mood, though, considering he had been standing in said queue. Even though autumn hadn’t officially begun, it was time for all of his favorite jumpers to make their way into seasonal rotation. He even found the mist and fog in the mornings to be romantic and ethereal. So no reasons for a queue to have bothered him.

What did stand a chance to bring him down, however, was being faced with Harry Styles and his ability to use girls and make people feel nervous and inferior. Not that Louis felt nervous or inferior. That was just a thing he noticed about other people while interacting with Harry. Louis was not fazed by any of it. Much.

With a mess of dark curls and smooth dark skin, it was obvious that the girl Harry was standing over at the sugar station with wasn’t Perrie. Another possible notch on Styles’ bed post, then. How could Perrie not notice any of this? 

Louis didn’t want to Harry to see him, but he wanted the girl to turn a little bit so he could see her face. He didn’t recognize her from behind, but maybe he had a class with her. Harry dumped what looked like an absurd amount of raw sugar in his coffee. Louis thought that at least he’d be able to get a look at her when they left. 

Louis kept his head down, but his eyes were straining to keep an eye on them. He was pretty good at this spy business. Yet again, his talents went unacknowledged.

 _“Ha-rry!”_ the girl whined. Even over the dozens of conversations that were happening in the same room, Louis definitely heard that. Without being able to control himself, he looked up fully to see Harry stealing a sip from the girl’s Frappaccino. Even with his cavity-inducing beverage in his right hand. A cheater and a thief, Louis thought. Of course Louis’d be paired with him for a project. 

He watched as the mystery girl kicked Harry with her Timberlands, though there was no real heat behind it. Harry let the girl have her drink back, but not before licking his lips and saying something Louis couldn’t quite make out. The girl swatted Harry’s shoulder. 

“What am I gonna do with you, Haz?” she said, patting Harry’s face affectionately.

He saw Harry’s eyes move around the room quickly, and then Louis suddenly became aware he was making direct eye contact with Harry Styles. Caught.

Then, to Louis’ utter disbelief, the bastard didn’t wave or shout a ‘hi’ across the cafe. Not that Louis really wanted to have an extended conversation with Harry and another one of Harry’s girls. 

Harry winked. 

Louis sputtered. He watched as Harry turned his eyes back to the girl. This time, Harry’s response didn’t get lost in the background noise of the cafe.

“Love me.”

Louis contemplated pushing everyone else in the queue out of the way in order to get his coffee.

***

“I should just call him out, yeah? In front of Perrie? Maybe push him around a bit, show off a little.”

Louis wondered if dropping his forehead on the tabletop would be too dramatic. Thankfully, Niall was tactful in ways Louis wasn’t.

“Nah, mate. Perrie doesn’t seem the type to go for the meatheads. Bad idea.”

Liam jumped in next, which Louis felt grateful for. The more voices convincing Zayn not to assault Louis’ sociology partner, the better.

“Right. I think covert is the best option, guys.”

Zayn and Louis turned to look at each other with raised eyebrows.

“Well, well, well. Look who’s been reading books,” Louis teased.

Liam rolled his eyes, but didn’t move to make any comeback. Suddenly, he coughed into his fist conspicuously. Louis raised his eyebrows, but didn’t make any comment. A deliberate silence fell over the table.

“Uh, hey, Louis. Louis’ friends.”

Somehow Harry had entered the bar without Louis noticing. Louis thought he would have had a sixth sense for Harry’s proximity by this point. 

Louis managed to hold back his question about how much Harry had heard. At least his internal monologue knew that would have been too obvious. 

“Hey Harry,” he answered quietly. The others didn’t say anything. Louis spared a glance over at Zayn, who was staring at his pint glass as if he were trying to make it boil or something.

“How are you?” Harry asked casually, though Louis saw him fidget a little. Good. Discomfort meant that all was going according to plan.

“Fine,” Louis answered. His instinct was to reciprocate with a genial ‘and yourself?’ but he kept it reeled in. He didn’t want Zayn to think he was anything less than one hundred percent dedicated to operation whatever-they-were-calling-it-these-days.

“Alright,” Harry said, smiling. He then barrelled on as if he weren’t trying to talk to a brick wall. “What are you up to tonight? Hope I didn’t interrupt an important conversation,” he started to trail off.

Zayn snapped out of his apparent daydream, which Louis could only assume involved him with some kind of sword and a white horse, and turned to address Harry for the first time.

“Yeah, we were just talking about how there weren’t any guys here good enough for us to pawn Louis off on.”

Louis’ head couldn’t have turned faster. Zayn was his friend and everything, but he didn’t have the authority to just say stuff like that, especially to people Louis had to work with. Louis had no idea what Zayn was doing. Zayn must have been going for shock factor or something, because he looked satisfied when Harry’s previously genuine smile fell slightly.

“Huh?” Harry seemed, possibly for the first time since Louis had met him, speechless. His furrowed eyebrows made Louis angry.

“Don’t act like you’re so surprised,” Louis said flippantly. He then turned to Zayn and tried to channel every insulting thing he could think of into his Zayn-glare.

“No, that’s not what I, I mean, I think,” Harry trailed off, clearly not able to articulate his thoughts. Louis’ night had officially taken a turn for the worse. 

Another awkward silence descended over the table, but this one felt worse because Louis knew he hadn’t put it there himself. If it were possible for Louis to have climbed into his bottle of hefeweizen, then he would have been willing to try it.

“Shit, well!” Harry said, trying to muster up the enthusiasm he normally had. “I hope you find someone good enough then, Louis. Ta,” he finished lamely. He quickly spun on his heel, head ducked down, and pushed his way through groups of people to escape. 

Louis slowly turned back to the rest of the booth, unsure of how to filter all of the thoughts in his head into words. 

“And a homophobe, too,” Zayn said pointedly. Everyone groaned.

“Fuck off, Zayn,” Louis said, reaching over to twist his nipple. “You’ve basically made my sociology project, which is worth about 30% of my grade, awkward as hell, so yeah. Cheers, mate.”

***

Monday afternoons were Louis’ preferred day to do laundry. He found that everyone and their aunts went to the laundrette on Sunday, and that meant he’d have to stand watching like a hawk to make sure no one stole his shit or removed it before it was finished drying or anything. Monday meant no crowds, a place to sit, and definitely a spot to revise while he waited for his cycle to finish. 

He bolted back into the store to switch his load from the washer to dryer when he saw a familiar head of hair over by the dryers. Shit.

He had done a pretty good job of avoiding Harry since the night at the Northern. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed or ashamed of his sexuality, but he always wanted to make sure he knew how someone else felt about gay people before he came out to them. Louis considered it self-preservation and being responsible. Apparently Zayn didn’t consider it at all. 

Harry had seemed uncomfortable that night. Louis wasn’t sure if that made him homophobic, per se, but Louis had seen it enough times to bet that Harry was cataloging every interaction they had ever had to think about whether Louis had been hitting on him. That kind of stuff made Louis’ blood boil, since Harry clearly had no problem seducing woman after woman, but would be the kind to get offended by the same happening to him. Honestly. Even though Louis was still annoyed at Zayn’s stunt, he was even further behind Operation Take-Down-Styles. 

Louis dragged his hamper full of wet clothes over the row of dryers, keeping his eyes down. Maybe he could get away if he didn’t make eye contact with Harry. Maybe Harry wouldn’t see him at all.

Of course, that didn’t happen.

“Louis,” Harry said, sounding pleased. Louis gut twisted up tightly. Louis never understood why Harry seemed so happy all the time. Was it because of how often he got laid? Is that why he was so happy and Louis was so crotchety?

“Harry,” he responded with much less enthusiasm.

“How are you, mate? Haven’t seen much besides the back of your head this week.”

Louis nodded but didn’t respond.

“It’s a good thing I saw you, though, because I meant to send you a text later. I think we need to go over some of the articles for that lit review. I’m struggling to get through my half. What about you?”

Louis was kind of shocked. He had half expected Harry to bring up the awkward moment at the Northern, or have tried to explain it away. Louis didn’t mind. He could talk about the project. Much easier that way.

“Yeah, some of them are torturously long,” he said, as he dug through his wet laundry, untangling the legs of his jeans before tossing them into the dryer. “Never thought I’d be happy to see three pages worth of citations than at the end of some of those.”

He glanced over at Harry, who was folding the items he took out of the dryer. Louis was impressed. Honestly, when Louis was done, he tended to just shove the dry clothes back in the hamper and let them sit in his flat for a couple of days until he got bored and put them away. And yet, there was Harry folding them all proper and looking like he put great care into it, like it wasn’t a soul-sucking chore.

“Please tell me those are yours,” Louis said before he could stop the words from leaving his mouth.

Harry looked down at the clothes in his hand. Louis could see the blush that rose on his cheeks. 

He held a pair of ladies’ leggings. They were red, leopard print, and completely outlandish, and Louis would have paid two hundred pounds then and there to see Harry in them. 

Harry laughed, but it was a nervous laugh. Not like his usual laughs, where he seemed shocked by his own enthusiasm. This one was deliberate, a way to give his brain more time to explain. Louis’ brain had already filled in the story, though. Harry enjoyed women’s fashion. Louis couldn’t wait to spread that rumor, starting with Zayn, Niall, and Liam.

“Funny, do you know Jesy?” Louis shook his head, though his eyes wandered to the dryer Harry had been pulling clothes out of. Were there women’s pants in there, too? Louis wondered if he was about to stroke out.

“No, no. Who’s Jesy?”

Harry pursed his lips together. “Oh, she and I live together. I do her laundry for her sometimes. This being one of those times,” he trailed off, giving his hair a quick shake.

Louis was definitely going to stroke out. He had been underestimating Harry, definitely. He thought he had been balancing a couple of girls on top of Perrie, but it turned out Perrie was a girl on the side, as well. Louis just didn’t understand how Harry managed it all. Was Harry’s dick chafed from all the sex? Louis’ throat felt dry. 

“Wow, you’re, like, properly wifed up, then?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “She does call me her house husband, but it’s not like I don’t get anything out of it, y’know?” 

Louis choked back on some vomit. 

“No, I don’t really know,” he muttered, more to himself than to Harry. He fumbled with his little bag of coins, trying to dig out some to put in the machine. 

Of course, in his complete internal freak out he dropped it. Thankfully, it just dropped straight down, but a dozen coins rolled out and onto the floor.

“Fuck me,” Louis whined, as he bent down to retrieve them. Harry was faster, though, and he effectively blocked Louis’ reach. Louis stood back up slowly and looked around. Nothing out of the normal.

Before he could even let himself think about it, Louis reached into Harry’s dryer and grabbed a random pair of pants, quickly stuffing them into the back pocket of his trousers. He hoped they were girls’ pants. It’d be the perfect evidence and exactly what they needed to crack the operation. 

“Thanks, mate,” Louis said as Harry handed the bag back to him, an odd smile on his face. “I’m just gonna...,” he trailed off, gesturing behind him to where his dryer remained. He walked backwards so that Harry wouldn’t see the nicked knickers in his pocket. “Let’s work on the project soon.”

Harry smiled and nodded, the dimple making an appearance, but didn’t say anything else.

It was entirely possible that Louis let his life get out of his control. 

***

“I’m a pant stealer,” Louis moaned with his forehead against his refrigerator. The penis-shaped magnet on their freezer was imprinting itself on his forehead, but it was probably appropriate. Louis stole Harry’s pants to play some kind of prank, but he didn’t even manage to snag any lacy ones.

“Yeah, honestly, mate, I’m not sure how to respond to this,” Liam said. 

“So wait, I just want to make sure I’m up to speed on this,” Niall said from on top of the counter. “Harry Styles has over three girlfriends, possibly four, and he lives with one of them?”

Louis nodded against the refrigerator, the movement causing the penis magnet to fall to the floor. Louis couldn’t see Zayn roll his eyes, but he could feel it. 

“What I don’t understand is if he likes the one he lives with to not only, y’know, live with her, but also clean her knickers, why is he messing around with all the other ones? Is she bad in bed?”

“She owns red leopard print leggings, Zayn. No way she’s bad in bed,” Louis replied morosely.

Liam generously chuckled.

“So, we’ve got this pair of pants,” he said slowly, gesturing to where the said garment sat next to Niall on the counter. Niall shifted away from them. “What are we going to do with them? Should we bring them to Perrie or something? Act all, ‘Oh, look what Niall found at some girl’s flat.’”

“But shouldn’t we say it to the girlfriend, though? The one he’s living with? What if Perrie knows he has a girlfriend? She can’t be that innocent, right?” Niall reasoned.

“No, we go to Perrie, here. She’s the main reason for this,” Zayn argued.

“Or,” Louis started, pulling his head off the freezer door and turning around. “I think we should go old-school here. Perrie may be the goal, but the crime is cheating, and cheaters deserve public shaming.”

“Alright. I think I’ve got this one, lads,” Zayn said. He grabbed the pants off the counter and walked towards his bedroom.

“Don’t, like, wank in those or anything,” Louis called out. That could be tested for DNA and Louis didn’t want to get put on a paedo list. 

“Yeah, wouldn’t want Zayn to steal your chance of coming on Harry’s knickers, would you?” Niall said, waggling his eyebrows. Louis lunged after Niall, trying to slap him in the balls, but Niall had already jumped off the counter and made a dash for the living room. Louis wasted no time in chasing after him.

“So is no one going to make the obvious ‘Louis is a dickhead’ joke here?” Liam called out alone from the kitchen.

***

The next Saturday had found Louis and Harry at the library of all places. After a quick exchange of text messages, Louis had admitted that he had some idea of how Harry had landed all of these girls. He was an incredible flirt. Though Louis held no suspicions that Harry was flirting with him, the fact remained that Harry signed off his texts with more x's than a porn film. It was easy to see how girls would be affected by that. Thank goodness Louis wasn’t fooled by any of those hormones.

Harry had texted him while Louis made the walk to campus. They had agreed to meet at 10:45 to beat the students who rolled into the library in the afternoon. But neither of them had wanted to give up sleeping in on Saturday. It had seemed like a compromise, but as Louis made the trek, he wished he didn’t have to spend the next two hours with Harry. He looked down at his phone again ( _‘just snagged us a study room!!! score!!! yay privacy .xx’_ ) and cursed the day his professor had set the two of them up as partners. No one should be excited about a study room ever.

Once settled in it, however, Louis had to admit it was convenient. There was a whiteboard there for productivity and everything. Harry had written a list of articles they still had to read and annotate, and Louis had drawn a penis.

Louis wanted to avoid all conversation with Harry outside of the project, and so chose to stick in his headphones. It was a tactic to help him ignore Harry, and it may have been rude, but to be honest, Louis was really confused when it came to Harry’s actions. How was the same guy who did his girlfriend’s laundry and then cheated on her, the same guy who made sure to say ‘bless you’ to any person who sneezed within a 10 metre radius?

Harry seemed to be having an equally hard time concentrating. After about half an hour, he coughed into his hand and then stood up to cross out one of their articles on his ‘to read’ list on the whiteboard. When Louis looked up, Harry was just finishing up a surprisingly accurate doodle of their sociology professor. 

“Not bad,” Louis said despite himself, as he pulled one of his earbuds out. Harry looked at him and gave him the biggest grin. Louis gulped. This is how it happened to those girls then. Louis blamed the dimple.

“Not that I don’t love our project,” Harry started, and then moved to the seat at the head of the table. Closer to Louis. “But these articles are well boring.”

Louis nodded. His method of ignoring Harry had clearly failed. What was his Plan B? He really should have come up with one.

“I’d rather talk about how you stole my briefs when I wasn’t looking at the laundrette,” Harry said simply. Louis’ eyes widened and he couldn’t help but notice Harry’s smirk. And Harry’s dimple, which was out in full force. How quickly the tides had turned. Louis didn’t have a contingency plan for if Harry called him out on this. “You were the only one with access to my underwear this week.”

Louis’ mind flashed to Niall’s earlier comment, and then to Harry in his own briefs, and shit. Not the best time. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied, though the way his voice cracked at the end didn’t make him seem too convincing. 

“Why’d you hang my pants up on the Lit department bulletin board? And why’d you add the sign?”

Louis had no idea what sign Zayn had written. He hadn’t known that Zayn had actually followed through on his threat to shame Harry.

“Oh, were those yours? I heard about that. Lots of blokes wear Topman, though. I have a few meself,” Louis bluffed.

“Louis,” Harry said, but he didn’t sound nearly as exasperated as he probably wanted to. He chuckled again. “I don’t really understand the whole pulling-pigtails-in-a-playground deal, though. If you wanted in my pants, you didn’t need to like, try and make me feel bad first?” He said. Louis thought he might have had an aneurysm. “Unless that’s what you’re into,” Harry added quickly. 

“I’m really confused,” Louis started. “Shouldn’t we go back to--” and then he shut up. Harry had quite effectively launched himself at Louis.

To be perfectly fair, Louis hadn’t gotten any action for a couple months, at least since the summer, and definitely nothing since he had started working on the project with Harry, so to say that his body missed snogging someone was an understatement. 

Also, Harry was fit and a master at seduction. Although Louis would have liked to maintain that he resisted, or had some grand moment of maturity and good person-dom, he reciprocated the kiss almost instantly. 

Harry, who had been awkwardly crouching above Louis, slowly climbed on to Louis’ lap. Louis would have been shocked, but he was secretly glad that he didn’t have to worry about pulling something in his neck. Louis threaded his hand to the back of Harry’s head, grabbing at the hair falling below the nape of Harry’s neck. 

Harry let out a low groan and tried to climb further into Louis’ lap. Jesus.

At that point, Harry’s knees bracketed Louis’ thighs on the chair, and Louis was vaguely (so very vaguely) aware that the chair was one of those cheap and uncomfortable ones that were prone to breaking if someone so much as stood on it. It probably wasn’t used to taking two lads’ worth of weight. But if it did somehow collapse, Louis quickly reasoned, it’d be worth it. So, so worth it.

Louis nipped at Harry’s lower lip, and relished in the noise Harry made. Louis thought that it sounded eerily close to a whimper. He made Harry Styles, the genuine ladies’ man, whimper just from kissing. Louis was a god amongst men.

Louis slid a hand up Harry’s thigh, and tried to encourage Harry back on his heels. Harry followed, and Louis felt Harry’s knees spread out a bit further. Suddenly their groins made contact and it was Louis that made the needy noise. Louis’ stomach curled up in on itself, and Louis knew he was in trouble. 

Harry pressed short, sweet kisses down his chin, jawline, down to his neck. His breath passed by Louis’ ear, causing Louis to involuntarily shiver. If Harry noticed, he didn’t say anything, but he made quick work of nipping at Louis’ neck.

“Nnnngh,” is what came out of Louis’ mouth before he could stop it. Harry didn’t seem to mind the lack of verbal cues.

Louis slid his left hand from Harry’s thigh up to his lower back, sliding it up under Harry’s t-shirt. Apparently, that bit of skin contact worked for him, since Louis could feel Harry’s eyelashes flutter on his cheek.

“Library,” he muttered, before connecting his lips to Louis’ again.

Louis pulled away. “Study room,” he muttered in response before diving back in himself. Louis wondered how despite dating around as much as Harry did, Louis hadn’t heard the wonders of Harry’s kissing technique before. Louis wondered how that would translate to some of Harry’s other techniques, but as Harry deftly sucked on Louis’ tongue, he found that he already knew the answer.

“Come back to mine,” Harry said, before diving back down to suck a matching lovebite on the other side of Louis’ neck. “I have the place to myself this weekend.”

The place to himself, Louis heard. Because he didn’t live alone. He lived with his girlfriend.

Suddenly, Louis remembered that the two of them existed beyond the walls of this study room in this library. That Harry had a girlfriend who he may have cheated on with three other girls. Three other girls and Louis, if you counted kissing as cheating. Louis normally did. 

Louis took a deep breath and tried to will his hard-on down to something less obvious. It would be easier to reject Harry if it weren’t so persistent.

“Uh, I think that’s a bad idea,” Louis said, his voice only wavering slightly. Harry’s lips stilled on his neck. “I just feel weird about this.”

“What?” Harry asked, popping up to look him in the eye. Harry’s eyebrows were furrowed. Louis constantly wondered why Harry had to look so intense all the time.

“It’s just, uh, you have all those girls,” he started, but he didn’t know where the rest of that sentence was going to follow. 

“What do they have to do with anything?” Harry asked, starting to shift off of Louis’ lap.

“I just don’t want to get involved, alright,” Louis snapped.

“Okay,” Harry responded, as he scurried to get as much space between him and Louis as possible. “That’s fine. Got it.”

Louis couldn’t stop though. “I don’t want to be some experiment, or meddle in other people’s love lives, or be another notch in the many, many in your bed frame.”

Louis saw the flush rise on Harry’s cheeks and he knew he had finally made Harry crack.

“Alright, Louis. I get it,” he said meekly. Harry still looked confused, and rather than feeling triumphant, Louis just felt uncomfortable.

He quickly grabbed his half of the articles and stuffed them inside his knapsack. They’d be all mixed up and crumpled, but he couldn’t stay in the room to see Harry break. Before he had even finished zipping up the bag, he threw it across his shoulder and left the study room. He resolutely did not listen to hear if Harry said anything when he left, and he certainly didn’t think about Harry’s confused look even after Louis had spelled it out for him.

Louis had wanted to embarrass Harry, sure, that had been the plan the entire time, but he didn’t go so far as to want to see the fallout of that embarrassment. Seeing Harry get upset did not bring the feeling of success he thought it would.

For the first time since this whole shit show began, Louis thought he might have missed something important.

***

“Ahm mmmrll,” Louis whined into the cushion of the sofa.

“You wanna try that one again, mate?” Liam asked, dropping into the other end, lifting Louis’ feet up, and then rearranging them over his lap. 

Louis lifted his head off of the cushion. “I’m immoral,” he repeated. He let his head flop back down.

Liam patted his ankle patiently. “And why do you think something like that?” 

Louis tried to bite back the obvious-- did Liam realize who he was talking to? Louis may have never run someone over with a car or stolen candy from a child (jury’s still out), or kicked an old granny in the shins, but he was no saint. Liam bore witness to this more times than he cared to admit.

Louis sighed, which ended up sounding more like a wheeze. He wanted to tell Liam. He did. But this was one of his most embarrassing stunts ever, and he was feeling bent up about it. First, he was embarrassed to have fallen prey to Harry’s charms. For all Louis’ talk about how irritable and rude Harry was, the second he crooked his finger, Louis had been complacent. He wanted Harry. Louis basically put his hormones in front of his ethics. While nobody pictured Louis Tomlinson as the face of ethical and moral behavior, he didn’t want people to think he was too easy. Even if he was. 

“I don’t want to tell you.”

Liam’s smile turned from a textbook supportive smile to a mischievous grin. Louis knew that grin. He basically taught Liam that grin. “It must be juicy, then. C’mon, tell Daddy Liam all about it.” Louis turned his head to the side just to make sure Liam heard the gagging sounds he made.

“Gross,” he said. “Okay, so maybe it’s more like I can’t tell you.”

“I would have thought it’d be the opposite, to be honest,” Liam said, but didn’t push any more. Louis respected that, even if he didn’t understand it. Liam just accepted things as they were, whereas Louis always had to take things too far. It’s why Liam had a normal dating life, and Louis got himself into these messed up situations.

When it got down to it, though, Louis couldn’t tell. As mortifying as it would have been to tell them about his brief time being seduced by Harry Styles, it wasn’t as if Louis had a whole lot of shame. The day before he had spent a good fifteen minutes describing-- in detail-- the shit he had taken in the bathroom near the Philosophy department. And the last time he pulled a guy-- or had been pulled rather-- he had nicked five pounds from the guy’s kitchen table. He told the lads about that, so really, he didn’t hide much.

He would have felt bad telling the lads about Harry because it was more than telling them about a random event. It was something he was revealing about Harry... as a person.

Louis hadn’t the faintest clue that Harry may have been into blokes. Louis had only seen him with women, so he assumed that’s who he pulled. And Louis normally considered himself to have superb gaydar, so if he thought Harry was straight, then there was no way Zayn and the others thought otherwise.

Louis remembered how annoyed he was when Zayn outed Louis to Harry at the pub some time back. Louis knew firsthand how someone’s opinion of you could change after learning what they liked finding in someone’s pants.

And, to be fair, Louis didn’t know if Harry was bisexual. Or gay, even, though Louis thought that option looked less likely with all of his girlfriends. Had Harry gotten so bored with women he needed the challenge of seducing a bloke? Louis was flexible, but he tried to maintain some strands of dignity.

Louis held the trump card. He had irrefutable proof that Harry had been cheating on Perrie, and that he hadn’t been faithful. He had a reason to call out Harry in public and shame him in front of a lot of people. All it would require was some confrontation, which Louis happened to be excellent at, and then Zayn would swoop in, and convince Perrie she deserved better. Possibly with his penis. 

But Louis kept that swallowed. He maybe needed to grow up a little bit.

Liam looked curiously at Louis as he shifted to pull out his cell phone. Louis pulled up his most recent text conversation with Zayn ( _‘fairly sure that toby kid whipped his dick out in class. suspicious movements and coat over lap... aha’_ ) and contemplated what to write.

_‘m8 ive been thinking and you should just tell perrie straight up what you feel. if you take down harry first she might be hard pressed to forgive you even if its to make you look good. idk think about it.’_

Without saying anything, he showed the text to Liam. Liam nodded his approval. Louis pressed send.

“You know, Lou, I don’t think you’re as much of a prick as you think you are. Stupid, sure. But you’re brave and ambitious, with a tendency of protecting the people you love. That’s not unforgivable,” he said, before he gave Louis’ ankle one last squeeze and slid off the couch.

***

If things started in September, then shit definitely hit the fan in November. Working on the project with Harry remained awkward, but they both had wordlessly agreed to not collaborate in person. Louis had been writing in his annotations for their bibliography in a Google Doc and neither of them spoke about the morning at the library. They didn’t speak, full stop.

Louis and the lads found themselves at the Northern despite Niall complaining that they needed to find another pub. Niall had pulled a few girls during October, and he kept seeing them there. 

“There’s a reason most people on campus come here,” Louis reasoned. 

“It’s close by, pints are okay-priced, and they still have snooker,” Liam said with a smile, as he settled into his chair.

“I personally enjoy the warm environment in which I get to watch Zayn stumble and fail to pull the one fair lady he wants most of all,” Louis added with a smirk.

“Speaking of,” Niall started, and gestured towards the bar area. Louis looked at Zayn’s face first, and yes, it had dropped several shades of color and his jaw had gone a little slack. Louis then turned and saw a familiar head of purple hair standing near the bar. She hadn’t been leaning over the bar top again, but Zayn still looked hypnotized.

“Now’s your time, mate. I don’t see Harry over there,” Liam said. Louis sent a silent ‘thank you’ up to the gods for sparing him. 

Zayn stood up suddenly, knocking into the table that they were huddled around. Louis steadied it before it could tip over and bring them too much attention.

“Go get her, buddy,” Louis said, giving Zayn an exaggerated punch in the arm. Zayn rolled his eyes, but looked fond, and gave Niall and Liam simultaneous high-fives. He then steeled his face and then traipsed over to where Perrie and her friends were gathered. Louis squinted-- he had definitely seen at least one of those friends before around campus. 

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was totally unaffected,” Liam said, as they watched Zayn cross the room. “Oh, there he goes. He’s talking to her. His mouth is making words and she’s listening. I’m strangely proud we got to this point,” he added.

“God help us, we just need to get him to actually convince her to date him. Either way, we’ll never hear the end of it,” Louis said.

There was a moment of silence at the table as they watched Zayn try to talk to Perrie. Louis imagined that Zayn was under some kind of spell where he only said embarrassing things, or that his brain froze and the only topic of conversation he could come up with was furry porn or something. Louis also wondered why he had friends at all, when he mentally tortured them.

“How’s the project coming along, Lou?” Niall asked.

Louis purposefully ignored him. It went against his anti-school-talk policy. Also he didn’t want to discuss it.

“Perrie’s friends look well bored,” Louis pointed out. “Should we go play wing men?” Of course, Louis was out of his seat before the question was fully out of his mouth. Anything to avoid the topic of Harry Styles. 

Louis knew Liam and Niall both suspected something. Louis hadn’t mentioned Harry in weeks, not to mention hadn’t made any moves to play a prank or spread a rumor about him. It was a sharp cry from earlier in the semester, and coupled with him encouraging Zayn to move in on Perrie, it must have looked like a red flag to Niall and Liam. Louis hoped it wasn’t obvious to other people.

“Evening, ladies,” Louis greeted as he walked up behind Zayn. Zayn looked relieved to see him. He must have found looking effortlessly cool to be so exhausting.

Zayn grabbed Louis’ shoulder and dragged him a little further into the group’s huddle.

“Ladies, this is my flatmate,” Zayn began. _Louis_ , is how that sentence was going to end, of course. But this time, the four girls in front of them finished the job.

“Louis,” they all interrupted in unison. Louis felt himself break out into a cold sweat.

“That’s my name,” he joked. The joke fell flat. Louis shrunk under the girls’ gazes.

Zayn looked back and forth between Perrie and Louis, then Perrie and her friends, then back at Louis.

“Am I missing something here?” Zayn asked slowly. Liam and Niall had finally reached them, and now stood behind Louis. Louis found himself wishing there was less of a crowd, or better yet, that he had never walked over in the first place. The price he paid for being a semi-decent friend.

It suddenly occurred to Louis that it was possible Perrie knew about the kiss with Harry. Which meant that if they were about to have a confrontation, Zayn would find out about it. Shit. 

“Louis’ just been giving our friend a bit of trouble, s’all,” said the girl to Perrie’s right. She had a mess of fire engine red hair, and even though her words made it seem like not a big deal, Louis picked up the implication that it was a very big deal. Louis hadn’t thought there were many other people with his same ability to decimate others with their words, but this girl was right up there. Louis felt Zayn’s eyes narrow in on him. Zayn would be insufferable if it was Louis that ruined his chance with Perrie. 

Niall chuckled awkwardly behind him and clapped him over the shoulder. “Must be a mistake. Louis’ not one for picking on girls.”

“Harry’s the nicest person,” said another one of the girls, the one with the blue hair. “If he pisses someone off, he does anything to make it up to them, so I have no idea why you’d dislike him enough to keep embarrassing him.”

Louis was speechless.

“Harry? Harry Styles?” Zayn jumped in. The girls didn’t respond, but gave him a shrinking look that said everything. It was good-- Louis wondered if they practiced that in their free time.

“Ohhhh,” said Niall and Liam, nodding.

“That makes way more sense, then,” Niall added. He removed his hand from Louis’ shoulder. 

“Listen, I don’t know what he told you,” Louis started, but he found he didn’t know how to finish that sentence. 

“Oh, he speaks,” Perrie said sarcastically. Louis felt he probably deserved that. He had kissed her boyfriend, sort of. 

“If you’re not going to say anything, let us at least break it down for you,” said the one to Perrie’s left. Louis wished they had name tags. “You’ve been acting a prick to Harry for months now, but he’s been thinking it was some weird mating ritual.”

Perrie jumped in. “We tried telling him that if you were into him, you’d be honest and straightforward, and not resort to stealing knickers and humiliating him in front of professors.”

Louis gulped nervously. He realized that they may have played the wrong strategies. 

“The way he thought that was some kind of foreplay was well strange, and though I realize that flirting over my laundry was probably extremely erotic, Harry deserves someone who’s willing to be upfront about what he wants and not someone who acts like a boy on a playground.”

Louis’ brain couldn’t process any of that information.

“I didn’t display the pants,” he stated weakly. “I took them, but I didn’t do anything with them.” After saying it out loud, Louis realized how truly bizarre that sentence sounded. He was going to kill Zayn next chance he got. Zayn stood suspiciously silent next to him.

The girls looked thoroughly unimpressed.

“But you did write the thing in the girls’ loo,” said the one in back. “‘Harry has a tiny cock’ or whatever. The handwriting is yours-- matched it using Harry’s notes.”

Louis wanted nothing more than for one of the lads to jump in, or for some bar fight across the way to start up, or for a large meteor to make the Northern its final destination in that moment.

“So the platypus is the girls’ loo,” is what came out of his mouth instead.

The girls groaned. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Liam jumped in, “Just want a clarification. So, are you not dating Harry?” he asked Perrie. Her eyebrows jumped up. “Are any of you dating Harry?” he asked, looking between the girls. 

“Are you for real?” asked the one with the red hair. “Have you been paying any attention?”

The four boys exchanged looks. Louis wasn’t sure how much more of this he would have been able to take.

“Apparently not,” Liam said.

“And where were you guys when this was all going down, then? Did you know about this?” 

The other three lads stared down at the floor. 

“Listen,” said the one with the blue hair. Her voice got softer, and Louis had to listen closer to hear her over the other conversations in the pub. Louis hoped they were done yelling. He was feeling proper stupid. “Sorry if we’re being harsh, but Harry’s our best mate and we hate seeing him upset. 

“He was embarrassed the other day and didn’t want us to know that you had turned him down. Maybe because we had told him you weren’t good enough and he was so adamant you were and that it was fine, and then it, y’know, wasn’t. It was a blow to his pride, and we just aren’t going to let just anyone get away with that.”

Louis dropped his head into his hands.

“I’m an idiot.”

No one made a move to say otherwise.

“Sorry, again, just to clarify,” Zayn said, leaning closer into the group they had formed. “None of you are dating Harry, none of you ever dated Harry, Harry fancied Louis, Louis turned Harry down, something which he never told us about, and Perrie is single.” 

Perrie crossed her arms, but nodded.

Zayn leaned back. “Well, this was illuminating.”

Louis turned to him and gave him the nastiest glare he could muster.

“This is your fault,” he said flatly. He then turned to the girl with the red hair. He was still a little scared she’d take him down. “So, you live with him then?”

“We all do,” Perrie added. 

Behind him, Louis could hear Niall snort.

“Shut up, Niall, you are not an innocent party, here,” Louis added. 

Louis turned on his heel and went back to their table. He grabbed his coat, slipped it on, and before anyone could stop him, left the pub. 

Louis was a couple of blocks away from the pub before he dug out his mobile and opened a new text message. He really wanted to talk to Harry but the radio silence that had been apparent for the last few weeks made things awkward. 

_‘hey can i talk to you,’_ he typed out and pressed send. Was it too demanding? Should he have started with a simple ‘what’s up’ to see if Harry would even respond? He watched it deliver on his phone and he waited. 

_‘are you texting the wrong number?,’_ came the reply. 

_‘no, i want to see you. can i come to wherever you are?’_

Louis didn’t want to head back to his flat, and he certainly didn’t want to go back to the pub. He stood in the middle of the sidewalk, under the street lamp, and waited for Harry’s response. 

_‘ok. i’m just at my flat.’_

Louis turned in the direction he knew Harry lived in and started walking. Harry texted him his address a minute later.

*** 

“I’m a tit,” was the first thing out of Louis’ mouth when Harry opened the door. 

Louis was hoping for it to break the ice a little, to get a chuckle out of Harry, but nothing. Harry, possibly for the first time since they met, didn’t crack a smile. At least before he had smirked to show he at least appreciated Louis’ efforts. Not this time. Louis had to work for it.

Harry did step out of the doorway, though, to let Louis enter the apartment.

The hallway was narrow, and Louis could see the doorway that led to the cramped kitchen area. Louis hadn’t been to Harry’s apartment before, obviously, feeling strange to think he lived with a girl, which would have been intruding upon that part of Harry’s life. If he had gone earlier, visited sooner, maybe the whole charade wouldn’t have gone on so long. Because it’s obvious upon entering that Harry’s home was not a love nest, but an overcrowed uni flat, with shoes everywhere. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many shoes before,” Louis muttered, trying again to lighten the mood. Harry still didn’t bite. Louis was pretty sure some of those shoes could double as weapons, but he didn’t want that that theory tested. 

“What can I do for you, Louis?” Harry asked, as he led him into the living room area. Up on the wall were dozens of photographs, and even from where he was standing Louis saw that each one held a different combination of Harry, Perrie, and the other girls. Louis threw his coat over a chair in the corner.

“It’s not... there’s nothing that you can do for me. It’s what I need to do for you. Or something.” Louis had formulated a plan on his walk over, but suddenly he couldn’t remember one thing he wanted to say. “I saw your friends at the pub tonight. Or, your flatmates, rather.”

Harry groaned and moved to speak.

“No, um, wait. I need-- I just. I’m a tit, I mean it. I thought,” he struggled, “oh this is so embarrassing. I thought you were with Perrie. Dating. Together. And I thought you were shagging around. So I was kind of being a dick to you. Except I didn’t mean for you to think I was flirt-fighting with you, although I guess I kind of was. You never seem phased by anything, and I wanted to see how far I could push before you’d get it, but I’m the one that never got it. You got it right away.”

“That makes no sense,” Harry said quietly.

“I know. I just, I saw all these girls around you, hanging all over you and I thought that you were sleeping with them. And Zayn,” Louis breathed.

“You thought I was sleeping with Zayn?” Harry gasped.

“No, Zayn wanted Perrie, or still wants her I guess, and I felt, like, protective of him. I wanted him to be happy. Which in my mind, meant you being unhappy. Which is why I’m a tit.”

“Oh,” Harry said simply. He coughed into his fist.

“You weren’t wrong, Harry. I did want to snog you. I thought you were dating someone-- multiple someones-- and that you were straight. But I did want it. I felt it, too.”

Harry stood a little bit taller.

“And so what?” he asked sadly. “Is that supposed to make me feel good about myself? That you thought I was a slag who used people? That I’d use you?”

Louis took a step closer. He didn’t like the direction the conversation took. Harry didn’t take a step back, though, which Louis took as a small victory.

“No, no. No. I’m an idiot, a giant idiot. I knew something wasn’t right when we started talking. I didn’t quite get how there were two versions of you, but I just created that other version of you. And I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’ve said that yet, but it’s true. I’m sorry. And I’d apologize a million times if it’d help. I’d also write on bathroom walls about my own small dick and hang up every single pair of pants I own in various departments around campus, even though I maintain that was Zayn and not me.”

This time, Harry smirked a little bit. “Small dick, huh?”

Louis shook his head quickly. “No. Good size. Bit bigger than average, but y’know, don’t want to brag.” Harry smiled a little bit more. Louis felt his stomach twist up again-- he wondered if he’d always associate that feeling with Harry’s dimple.

“It wasn’t really the pranks,” Harry admitted slowly. “I’m pretty unflappable. It’s like, um, like I mentioned, I thought you were, like, pulling my pigtails. Metaphorically, of course. So, when you said no, it was more the rejection than anything else. And um, realizing you thought I was a horrible person.”

“Nope, the horrible person award goes to me,” Louis cut in quickly. He took another step to Harry.

“The girls, although I love them to death, are a bit overprotective. I didn’t want them to be right about you,” Harry continued. He stopped and shook his hair a little bit, flicking his fringe out of his face.

Louis shrugged. “I mean, they were right.”

Harry looked up and met Louis’ eyes. “The game’s not over, Lou,” he said simply.

Louis realized Harry existed on a different plane. He was the funny and smart person he was in their not-study dates, but he was also so much more. He was patient and easy going and forgiving, almost to a fault. But those traits were what got Louis in Harry’s living room, talking to him, so Louis accepted them. Cherished them, even.

Even though he knew he was pushing a boundary, Louis reached out and tugged on a little piece of Harry’s hair.

“I mean, it’s not a pigtail, but close enough,” Louis teased.

“Really,” Harry teased back. Louis saw the dimple deepen. Louis knew he would do anything to watch that dimple form. 

“So, like, is this foreplay for you?” Louis asked, only half-joking. His left hand was still wrapped around a piece of Harry’s fringe, but he didn’t tug harder. He wondered what would happen if he did. Would Harry moan or would he slap Louis?

“Oi,” Harry laughed, playfully slapping Louis’ arm. Louis felt pretty good about the developments of the evening. He may have gotten reamed by four girls in public, but Harry Styles also looked at him like he was ready to devour him. “If it is, would you accuse me of being easy and then run away again?”

Louis couldn’t shake his head fast enough.

“No, it just means that we could have a lot of fun,” he smiled. “I can be ruthless.”

“So I hear,” Harry replied, and he shuffled a little bit closer to Louis. That hungry glint was back in his eye, the same one that had been there in the library, and Louis would be damned if he let the opportunity go to waste.

Louis lifted himself up on his toes and connected their lips, trying to convince Harry that snogging him would be a good idea. Harry apparently agreed. He leaned down instinctively, and pushed them back towards the sofa. 

Louis swiped behind him before he fell back on the cushions. He didn’t spare a second thought for the outdated edition of Glamour that fell to the floor as Harry climbed on him. It reminded him briefly of the library, and how quickly Harry had escalated things then, too. It made Louis ache a little, and so he set his mind to focus more on the very fit boy attaching his mouth to his earlobe.

“Shit,” Louis moaned, as he moved to roll Harry around and underneath him. Louis licked at his collarbones, and he felt Harry slide his cool hands up the backside of Louis’ t-shirt. Louis shuddered, and he felt the shudder pass from him to Harry, as if they were connected. The thought rocked Louis’ mind a little bit-- the idea that they hadn’t even had sex and it was if they were tied to each other.

Louis ground into Harry, not sure whether he should slow it down. If this whole thing had just been one long series of teases it seemed stupid to waste more time. Not if he was minutes away from hearing Harry come, feeling him come, seeing his face. Louis wanted it, and he was suddenly unaware how he had spent so much time around Harry not wanting to please him. Had he been that focused on winding him up that he hadn’t considered how he’d feel upon the release?

He felt Harry grabbing for his belt, tugging it open, but he didn’t want to let up on the spot he claimed for himself on the left side of Harry’s neck. But when Harry had trouble pushing Louis’ trousers down, Louis sat up, balanced on his knees, and shoved them down just far enough down that he hoped would spare any come getting on them. He then wasted no time grabbing at Harry’s trousers, and peeling those down to his knees. He spared a look up at Harry while he pet his thighs, and mentally kicked himself for not following through in the library. Harry’s head was tilted back, exposing his neck and his adam’s apple, and he looked quite affected. _Louis_ had affected him. 

With a surge of arousal, Louis dove back down and licked his way into Harry’s mouth. Louis felt Harry’s hand slide down his back and grab at his ass. Harry pulled Louis even closer. 

The slow rhythm that had been set sped up, and Louis could tell that everything was getting too intense. He suddenly worried that if he came first he’d miss Harry’s, but he wasn’t sure he’d be able to last much longer. 

He felt Harry’s hand on his has slip under his pants, grabbing at skin underneath, and his rhythm started to stutter.

“Fuck,” he heard Harry moan, and only then did realize Harry had been so quiet. Trying to get his rhythm back on track, he looked down at Harry only to see the tell-tale signs. The red blossomed all over his neck, his cheeks, the necklaces fallen to the side and Harry’s eyes shut closed. “Fuck,” Harry said again, as he came, and it took every ounce of will power Louis had to keep rocking him through it, when all he wanted to do was give himself a pat on the back. 

Harry moved to grab at Louis’ cock, but Louis whipped it out and proceeded to rub one out on Harry. Harry propped himself up on one elbow, using the other arm to yank Louis’ head down until he was snogging Louis through it. Harry didn’t seem to mind when Louis came all over Harry’s stomach and briefs, though possibly because Harry himself had already done so.

“Um, yeah, wow,” Louis managed as his brain returned to his body.

Harry just nodded, and ran his hand up and down Louis’ arm. It didn’t stop giving Louis shivers.

“Do you want an omelet or something? I’m famished,” Harry said after a few minutes. Louis nodded. 

They both sat up, stretching to release the tension. Louis stood up to slide his trousers off, and then without thinking too much about it, took his pants off as well before things stuck too much. He used a clean corner of them to wipe himself down a little, but he had mostly remained okay. It was Harry who had received most of it, though he didn’t look too upset by it.

Harry looked over at him, and that grin came back, extra filthy. Louis couldn’t suppress his own smile.

“Y’know, if you want, I can wash those for you in my next load of laundry.”

Louis barked out a laugh.

“Right, so I can leave my come-stained briefs here and then find them in the sociology department chair’s mailbox,” he teased. For good measure he leaned over and kissed the grin on Harry’s face.

“So you’re saying that would be a good seduction technique then?” Harry answered, patting his cheek.

“The best.”

***

While Harry had offered him a place in his bed that night, Louis wasn’t looking forward to facing Harry’s flatmates. He was sure that it’d all be reconciled, but Louis thought maybe giving it a bit of time to settle first would be wise. So after an only slightly burned omelet (Louis’ fault) and a few too many false starts, Louis finally left Harry’s flat (sans underwear) and headed back towards his own.

Upon entering his flat, he hoped Zayn was still out at the pub. Louis had received a few panicked texts from the lads (mostly variants of _‘where are u???’_ ) but no calls, so they didn’t seem too torn up. But as soon as he walked in, he heard Usher coming from Zayn’s bedroom, and saw a pair of pink Doc Marten’s near the sofa, and he knew exactly why Zayn was no longer at the Northern.

Louis quickly removed his clothes and crawled into his bed before grabbing his phone and sending a text to Harry.

_‘i think my time avoiding your flatmates is numbered. know anyone who owns a pair of pink doc martens and has a thing for misunderstood lit students?? ;)’_

Louis looked over their previous texts and couldn’t believe how much things had changed in a couple hours.

_‘omg. should’ve known when leigh, jesy, and jade just came in. also they asked why it smelled in here and i didn’t know what to tell them .xx’_

Louis grinned.

_‘may as well break the news to them soon. looks like our groups will be comingling more. xxxx’_

Louis wondered if four Xs were too many.

_‘definitely. hey speaking of comingling, wanna work on our project tomorrow ;) .xx’_

Louis laughed to himself in his room. Somehow he didn’t think they’d be very productive.


End file.
